Naver Japan announces what it's up to, finally after 3 years
Other | 2008/09/01 17:30 | Web 2.0 Asia
"Naver Japan is building a new web search service", its changed homepage now says - duh, no surprise whatsoever there, but some take it as a sign that Naver may have finally become ready to roll out its new search service in Japan. Naver has kept its website closed for some years.
Naver search had actually launched in the Japanese market earlier (circa 2005), but the service didn't make any splashes - it even saw some backlashes, as Naver search engine's crawler ("Naverbot") was found to make too frequent attempts to index websites and the Japanese web admins didn't like that, leading to their blocking of Naverbot.
Since, Naver has been investing wholeheartedly in the new search service for the Japanese market. Along with Baidu, Naver is trying hard to crack into the lucrative Japanese market, but it remains to be seen if Naver (or Baidu) will win enough users away from the dominating Yahoo Japan or the growing Google Japan. And there are also other local players like Goo, who understand the local market much better. Unless the service delivers a significantly better performance, it will be very difficult for Naver, a service that clearly carries a Korean image, to lure users away from Yahoo Japan.
Naver search had actually launched in the Japanese market earlier (circa 2005), but the service didn't make any splashes - it even saw some backlashes, as Naver search engine's crawler ("Naverbot") was found to make too frequent attempts to index websites and the Japanese web admins didn't like that, leading to their blocking of Naverbot.
Since, Naver has been investing wholeheartedly in the new search service for the Japanese market. Along with Baidu, Naver is trying hard to crack into the lucrative Japanese market, but it remains to be seen if Naver (or Baidu) will win enough users away from the dominating Yahoo Japan or the growing Google Japan. And there are also other local players like Goo, who understand the local market much better. Unless the service delivers a significantly better performance, it will be very difficult for Naver, a service that clearly carries a Korean image, to lure users away from Yahoo Japan.
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